I’ve been playing Ylva a bit. She’s love/hate so far. I can’t really say if she’s balanced or not, because I’ve either been having 25-kill matches or 0-kill matches, with not much inbetween.
Love:
The way her A and B work (and work together) is a lot of fun.
She’s a good burst-damage assassin. This game actually doesn’t have many choices for that, and they aren’t likely to survive bans.
She disintegrates people who haven’t started a defense by their third item. There should be a risk to playing glass-canon builds.
Both CP and WP work for her, and seem to be mostly balanced with one another. (CP seems to be just slightly inferior since it builds later and is much less effective against minions).
I like that her hearing is kinda useful, but not too useful. Since it pulses, it doesn’t always spot enemies before they are in range, and it’s not specific enough for skillshots to hit reliably. Mostly it helps Ylva roam the jungle and get an early warning if someone is about to gank her.
I love her trap, when it works. I like that it needs to be placed carefully, and it’s really fun that she says something snarky when it goes off (especially if I was across the map at the time).
Hate:
It seems like joysticks make her trap a priority target, so it’s useless to even try using to help someone escape. It’s useless any time it’s in shooting range of an enemy who is pressing heir attack button. If enemy joystick players are shooting at heroes, they will destroy the trap whether they want to or not. Seriously, it can’t be intended for enemies to nuetralize it that easily. Ironically, it seems more effective against higher tier players, since they are a lot less likely to be at max range spamming attacks at random. (I have her on my tier 5 account, so I mostly see joystick players and they mostly aren’t doing anything to change their targeting).
No escape. I’m fine with a squishy assassin, but Ylva has nothing that helps her get out of trouble. Her stun slows her and takes too long to channel, and her trap is going to be destroyed before it hits the ground. It’s particularly a problem since she is meant to dive onto an enemy, but she lacks any way to get out. She gets a little speed boost from her B, but it’s short and too minor to escape, given how squishy she is.
She’s squishy. It wouldn’t be a problem, but she also has no escapes in her kit. If you want to design a hero for short term angle, she needs speed, escapes, or tankiness. The combination of immobility and vulnerability really suck as soon as enemies decide to target Ylva.
The channeling and self-slow on her A feel off. I don’t think they are a bad idea, just that the numbers should be tweaked a bit. Maybe the slow should stop when she finishes charging? Maybe she should get increased range on her empowered shot? (To match her B maybe?) Maybe the numbers just need to be tweaked a bit? When it works it’s fun, but if a player doesn’t blindly walk within 5 of you then it’s just going to slow you down and be useless. You basically need to wait for someone to face check a bush to land the stun, and its unfun to have an ability that so often does nothing at all.
Ylva has no anti-turtle potential at all. She can’t poke, she can’t survive diving, and she’s got no way to force enemies out of an area or to CC them. She can’t even do suicide dives like Anka, since she does less damage, is slower, and has no way to blink out once she blinks in. I don’t mind counterplay, but turtling should not counter anything. Again, it seems to be less of a problem against higher tiers, since those players have tactics other than “team hug under the turret”.
I also hate the way she looks, and except for a few lines I don’t like her vocalizations much (for comparison, I still feel like Alpha has the best voice lines in the game, and I like most heroes).
Overall:
I thought I’d hate Ylva for a few reasons, mostly the character design. I also dislike most of the ranged he ones, even the ones I’m awesome with (Ringo and Kinetic are are so, so boring, but I almost always win with them). She’s actually kinda fun though.
She basically just needs work. The ideas behind her are good, and when she works, she works well, but she’s also ridiculously frustrating at time. It sucks having zero abilities which are useful to survive ganks, and it’s heartbreaking to try throwing out a trap to help a fleeing ally, only to see all the enemies behind him instantly stop shooting him and destroy the trap before it hits the ground.
And seriously: the turtles. Ylva needs some ability to go after passive enemies successfully. If the enemy is factchecking bushes, she’s great, and she can play cat-and-mouse with an enemy who is actively trying to fight her, but a jungler needs to be able to make turtles regret their life choices occasionally. It’s so frustrating hat he worst, most passive players are the ones she has trouble with. When a whole team is turtling there’s nothin she can do.
?
will do a lot more work vs 